Crimean Jamaat

The Crimean Jamaat was a breakaway faction of the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar terrorist group during the Syrian Civil War. Consisting mainly of Crimean Tatar and Central Asian fighters, Crimean Jamaat was connected to al-Qaeda.

History
The Crimean Jamaat was first led by Salakhuddin, an ethnic Chechen from the Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia, but he was ousted in June 2015. He was succeeded by Abu Ibrakhim Khorasani, a Russian-born Tajik fighter who came to fight in the Syrian Civil War. Abu Ibrakhim chose his nom de guerre to reference both his birthplace and the hadith that stated that a Muslim army from Khorasan would march on Jerusalem. From early 2014, the Crimean Jamaat fought alongside the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in Jisr ash-Shughour, and it was in 2014 that the Jamaat split from the Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar group. The name "Crimean Jamaat" comes from the fact that the original members were Crimean Tatars, but it later had a Russian commander and a Syrian military commander. On 20 June 2015 it was announced that the number of Tajiks fighting for the Islamic State increased to 500 (100 of which were killed), and it went to show the large numbers of Khorasanis fighting and dying in Syria and Iraq.